The IoT company Alpha-Omega Technology presents successfully implemented smart village applications based on LoRaWAN technology. The jury of the competition “Digital Places in the Land of Ideas 2023” chose the model village SMARTinfeld as the winner in the category “Smart Community”.
Schimberg and Berlin, November 16, 2023 – For more than five years, the local Alpha-Omega Technology GmbH has been implementing projects for a sensor-based Internet of Things (IoT) under realistic conditions together with the municipality of Martinfeld in Eichsfeld, Thuringia. In the Modellort SMARTinfeld , it is possible to experience how IoT solutions work for an entire community and thus make village life sustainable in the long term. SMARTinfeld is one of the five winners of the innovation competition for digital life in rural areas, „Digitale Orte im Land der Ideen 2023“. The model village received the award on November 14, 2023 in Berlin as the best digital project in the “Smart Community” category. This shows the national significance of the local project. The applications include smart street lighting, measuring road surface temperature, the level of particulate matter in the air and soil moisture, traffic counting and an IoT weather station park. They are all based on the Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) wireless technology, which has a wide reach, and open-source software. The project serves as a blueprint for digitization in rural areas.
With the innovative idea for SMARTinfeld, entrepreneur Jan Bose and the municipality of Martinfeld responded to the fact that smart city projects are usually limited to urban environments. As a result, they do not take into account the special needs of rural communities. SMARTinfeld is an answer to the many challenges rural areas face in terms of digitization. And the model village is a blueprint for the digitization of other small communities. Jan Bose, founder and managing director of Alpha-Omega Technology, explains: “This is an enormous added value because the appropriate IoT solutions can be selected from SMARTinfeld and adapted to your own community, without the need for pilot projects. This saves time, personnel and costs.”
© Deutsche Glasfaser/ Laurin Schmid
Bringing innovation and rural living together
In comparison to a smart city, the SMARTinfeld project is tailored to a lower population density and a stronger sense of community. It aims to maintain a rural way of life while integrating technology and innovation. The model location is already established and is continuously being developed: Alpha-Omega Technology regularly tests and optimizes new sensor-based IoT applications for rural areas using LoRaWAN radio technology in collaboration with the community. The advantage of this technology for transmitting the collected data lies in the minimalist data volumes, which ensure low power consumption while providing sufficient data protection because only the absolutely necessary data is used.
Harness the power of digitalization with LoRaWAN
Jan Bose says: “With SMARTinfeld, we are showing that rural areas can fully exploit the possibilities of digitization, and how they can do so. With a LoRaWAN network, the community of Martinfeld has become ‘smart’. LoRaWAN has an enormous range, which can be up to ten kilometers in rural areas. By positioning the gateways at an elevated location, we achieve excellent coverage. Furthermore, we don't have to dig up roads to lay cables to get the network up and running. Whether it's the temperature on the mountain or monitoring water levels and water quality, there are many requirements without having to introduce a new technology or software each time. A scalable, license-free IoT technology with a broad range of applications, such as LoRaWAN and open-source software, is better.” In the coming months, Jan Bose would like to implement further applications together with the community: the focus here is on monitoring the town's energy consumption, which is to be carried out in collaboration with the local grid operator.
Jan Bose, founder and managing director of Alpha-Omega Technology, accepted the “Digital Places in the Land of Ideas” innovation competition prize in Berlin for his model project SMARTinfeld (Photo: Alpha-Omega Technology).
Smart Village is not the same as Smart City
Rural communities differ from urban areas not only in terms of the use cases. If IoT applications are to cover a larger area in sparsely populated regions, several municipalities and thus authorities are usually involved – the need for coordination increases. In addition, people in rural areas often identify strongly with their community. With the SMARTinfeld project, Alpha-Omega Technology and its partners are presenting an approach for scalable use in other communities.
But not only other communities, Martinfeld itself should benefit even more from the commitment of the local company in the future, as Jan Bose explains: “A central goal is to strengthen the location and the surrounding area in the Eichsfeld region in the long term and to generate synergy effects. This includes the future design of the town and the integration of the population into the project. In addition to the sensor-based solutions, there are many other measures that round off the smart village concept. For example, a cooperative is currently being set up in Martinfeld to strengthen the positive development of the town.”
Competition showcases innovation in rural areas
Five projects from across Germany have been awarded prizes in the categories of 'Education', 'Community', 'Health', 'Mobility' and 'Smart Community' as part of the 'Digital Places in the Land of Ideas 2023' competition. They all demonstrate the extent of digital innovation in rural areas. And they show how people in rural areas are finding digital solutions to the important questions of our time. SMARTinfeld's award in the “Smart Community” category highlights the Bedeutung des Projektes far beyond the borders of Thuringia.
Material Press Release:
SMARTinfeld smart village project wins innovation competition “Digital Places in the Land of Ideas”